‘Long Island Business Report’ to debut as special to attract sponsors

WLIW21, a WNET station, is premiering a 30-minute local news show, Long Island Business Report, on Tuesday (May 1) as a special, with the aim of attracting sponsors. “We hope to re-launch in the fall,” host Jim Paymar told the Long Island Business News website. “The station is behind the project. It’s a matter of fundraising and getting sponsorships. We’ll be looking for funds from corporations and foundations and individuals who believe in public broadcasting and the type of program we’re doing.” The show is being produced as a collaboration between WLIW and the host’s Paymar Communications Group.In an announcement, the station said the show “continues WLIW21’s commitment to presenting the issues most important to Long Island residents and celebrating the Island’s unique people and places.”Paymar is a veteran business news anchor and correspondent who has worked for CNBC, WABC, WNBC, and BusinessWeek.

Eaton enjoys choosing shows, and shoes

Rebecca Eaton, e.p. of Masterpiece and the woman who brought the hit Downton Abbey to America, admits she’s “pretty addicted” to her job, in a Q&A with Collider.com (which describes itself as “the homepage for young men the world over obsessed with staying ahead of the curve in the marketplace’s most lucrative leisure pursuits”). In her role, Eaton says, “There’s always a crisis somewhere, and you get the satisfaction of solving the problem. And then, there’s always the mystery of whether a program will work or not, and waiting for the reviews or seeing what the audience figures are.”Eaton also reveals a fairly hands-off approach: Once shows are in production, “my motto is to leave them alone. Once they’re shooting, sometimes I go to the set to visit. When they’re shot, I look at various early cuts and give notes, as I give notes on scripts.

PBS UK channel ‘struggling to find the audience its content deserves’

Ian Burrell, media columnist for The Independent in London, talks with PBS President Paula Kerger, who was in Great Britain to promote the fledgling PBS UK channel that launched last year. The channel “is struggling to find the audience its content deserves,” Burrell notes. Richard Kingsbury, PBS UK general manager, “admits that 20,000 is currently considered a good rating — a poor return for the quality of the output.”Concludes Burrell: “PBS cannot compete with the BBC in this country, and nor would it try to, but it does offer a similar hallmark of quality and a welcome new insight into American life.”

Diverse array of NEA grants includes Mozilla, BAVC, multiplatform ‘Complete Ulysses’

Now online, Current’s roundup of this month’s NEA Media Arts grants, which includes several high-profile first-time recipients with strong digital components. Open-source pioneer Mozilla Foundation of Mountain View, Calif. — parent of the Firefox browser — won $100,000 for Open(Art), which will commission collaborations between artists and technologists to create and exhibit artwork on the Web. The Bay Area Video Coalition in San Francisco also received $100,000, to support the Factory Hybrid Filmmaking Project, a pilot for young filmmakers producing digital and web-native short films.Larry Josephson received $10,000 for his ambitious multimedia project, The Complete Ulysses. Josephson, a pioneering host on Pacifica’s WBAI in New York, has celebrities lined up to read James Joyce’s masterwork, estimated to take 30 hours or more.

NEA allotted this year’s media aid ‘to present art in new and . . . engaging ways’

Soon, listeners will hear celebrities read James Joyce’s entire masterpiece Ulysses via satellite and Internet radio; a New York City theater will use video-game technology to invent a new medium for the performing arts; and a San Francisco-based organization will craft computer data into interactive visual artworks. The projects are made possible through the newly expanded Arts in Media category from the National Endowment for the Arts, which this year branched out from primarily supporting public TV and radio programs. Last week the NEA announced 78 grants totaling $3.55 million, with an increased emphasis on technological innovation and multiplatform reach (Current, April 23). Several of the largest grants, $100,000 each, went to high-profile first-time recipients with strong digital components. Open-source pioneer Mozilla Foundation of Mountain View, Calif. — parent of the Firefox browser — won for Open(Art), which will commission collaborations between artists and technologists to create and exhibit artwork on the Web.

‘Sesame Street’ goes interactive this fall with help from Microsoft

Here’s an update on the partnership announced last October between Sesame Workshop and Microsoft to use Xbox 360 consoles fitted with Kinect motion-sensor technology to create interactive educational experiences for kids, including Sesame Street.Soho Studios, a new Microsoft unit in London, is working on Kinect Sesame Street TV, due out this autumn, reports C21 Media, a site focusing on cutting-edge content. “With Sesame Street from 1969 onwards, the characters have looked out of the TV and asked the kids a question and assumed they were answering,” said Soho Studios’ Senior Design Director Josh Atkins. “What we’ve done is allowed kids to answer.”He tells C21 Media about a game called “The Letter Tree,” in which Cookie Monster is hungry for his next meal. Everything that grows on the tree starts with a particular letter; if kids watching jump up and down, the goodies fall and Cookie Monster gets his reward. “The characters on the screen actually know what the child has done, they respond to the child’s actions,” Atkins said.

Latest Public Media Futures forum, from Los Angeles, to be posted online

The challenges and importance of local pubmedia TV production — from East Harlem to San Diego — was the topic of the latest Public Media Futures forum, on Saturday (April 28), sponsored by USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy and American University’s School of Communication. Presentations at KUSC in Los Angeles included an update on KCET’s local initiatives since its independence from PBS in 2010, from Al Jerome, president of the L.A. station; an inside look at how KPBS in San Diego is raising support for its robust multiplatform news-gathering operation; and an overview of the strength of local programming at Nashville Public Television from TRAC Media’s David LeRoy. The webcast of the meeting, which included a wide-ranging discussion among a diverse assortment of pubmedia stakeholders in the room and questions from online participants, will be archived the week of April 30 at this link, on the website of Annenberg’s Center on Communication Leadership & Policy. See coverage in the May 14 issue of Current; read Tweets posted from the forum at #pubmediafutures.

FCC okays framework for channel-sharing after spectrum auction

The FCC on Friday (April 27) unanimously adopted the basic regulatory framework for broadcast channel-sharing after the auction to free up bandwidth for mobile devices, reports Broadcasting & Cable. Any channel sharing will be voluntary and flexible; stations may decide how to divide a shared 6-MHz channel, as long as each delivers at least one standard-definition digital primary channel. Each primary channel will be subject to all FCC obligations and must-carry rights.Under spectrum auction legislation approved earlier this year, a broadcaster may opt to give up entirely its license to broadcast on a TV channel of 6 MHz, keep only part of its 6-MHz channel and share the rest with another station, or swap its UHF channel for a VHF channel (Current, Feb. 28).

‘Permanent beta’ a new programming approach for NPR

NPR lately has been using a more nimble and less expensive way of developing content — a kind of “permanent beta” — notes Nieman Journalism Lab. New offerings such as TED Radio Hour, Ask Me Another and Cabinet of Wonders are relatively inexpensive live shows or adaptations of existing titles, and run as pilot projects.That’s different from, say, Bryant Park Project, launched five years ago on a budget of $2 million after extended online piloting (Current, Sept. 24, 2007); that died within a year (Current, July 28, 2008).“Historically,” Eric Nuzum, NPR’s v.p. of programming, told Nieman, “the way that NPR and others in public radio have produced big programming is we come up with an idea we think is really good, we hire a staff, we keep all this very cloak-and-dagger secret, and then we try to make a big launch with it, and we end up with 30 stations and then over time more stations add to it. Using that process, it takes years to determine years if something is going to be a hit or not. And that involves millions and millions of dollars.”Nuzum added that whether the latest shows catch on or not, “I’m really proud of what we’ve come up with.

Oklahoma Network gets state funding for two more years

The Oklahoma Senate this week approved funding the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority for at least two more years, reports the Tulsa World newspaper. The House must approve the measure.”I think at this point, since this is the last few hours this could have been considered, I think this was a win for OETA and that we are going to be extended two more years,” said OETA Executive Director John McCarroll. “Had this not occurred, the way I understand the law, it truly would have ended on June 30 of this year. This gives us another two years to exist.”Two legislators had introduced bills in January to kill funding altogether, one immediately, the other over the next several years. House Bill 2236, approved on Wednesday (April 25), would have reauthorized OETA to continue as a state agency until its next “sunset,” or defunding, review in 2016, the paper reported.

WFUV’s Pete Fornatale dies following stroke

WFUV-FM is reporting that host Pete Fornatale, who got his start at the Fordham University pubstation as an undergrad in 1964 and went on to become an influential progressive-rock disc jockey in New York City, has died following a stroke. He was 66.“This is a devastating loss, not just for his family, friends, and colleagues at WFUV, but for radio listeners everywhere,” Chuck Singleton, interim general manager of WFUV, said in a statement. “Pete was a beloved air personality for four decades and a master communicator. His influence as a pioneer of progressive FM radio is almost incalculable.”He began his professional career in 1969 at WNEW-FM, where he established his weekly eclectic Mixed Bag show in 1982. Fornatale helped launch careers of singer-songwriters including Suzanne Vega, John Gorka and Christine Lavin, and through the years also interviewed stars such as Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Carly Simon and James Taylor.

Autism treatment grew into passion for classical music for young pubradio host

The host of the Josh’s Corner weekly classical podcast for WBOI-FM in Fort Wayne, Ind., may be unique within the pubradio system: In addition to being just 16 years old, Joshua Stephenson is also on the autism spectrum, reports the local Journal Gazette.When Joshua was 6, to treat his sensitivity to sound, his parents turned to audio therapy, using headphones that emphasized high and low pitches. Joshua learned to tolerate noise through classical music — and developed a love for the genre.Will Murphy, general manager of Northeast Indiana Public Radio, said that given that passion, Joshua might have a career in radio. “Anytime you have somebody who really loves something and can convey that affection on the radio,” Murphy told the newspaper, “I think there’s potential there.”Murphy said Joshua’s participation in the station reflects its mission statement: To engage the community with content that enriches the human spirit. “If Josh’s show doesn’t do that, I don’t know what does,” Murphy said.Listen to Josh’s Corner here.

FCC asks for input on allowing third-party fundraising on noncom stations

As anticipated, the FCC today (April 26) invited public comment on allowing noncommercial educational (NCE) broadcasters to spend a small percentage of their total annual broadcast time to conduct on-air fundraising activities for other nonprofits.The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is asking for input on whether the ban on third-party fundraising remains necessary to preserve the noncommercial nature of NCE stations; if there should be limitations on the stations that engage in the third-party fundraising; whether fundraising should not exceed 1 percent (about 88 hours) of a broadcaster’s total annual airtime; if there should be a durational limit on each specific fundraising program; if participating stations should submit annual reports to the FCC on their fundraising activities and, if so, what information; and whether participating stations should be required to certify in renewal applications that they have complied with any limits on third-party fundraising. Previously, the FCC granted waivers of the policy to permit noncom stations to raise funds in support of relief efforts for catastrophic events, such as Hurricane Katrina, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.”Given our experience in these and other cases, where the ability to raise funds for third-party nonprofits has been invaluable, we question whether it remains appropriate to require noncommercial stations to seek a waiver just as emergencies are occurring,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement.”This action reflects an effort to balance our continued interest in preserving the core educational mission of noncommercial stations with our goal of providing these stations additional flexibility to support nonprofits of their choosing,” he added.

House members establish Federal Spectrum Working Group, in anticipation of auctions

U.S. House Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and Ranking Member Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) have launched a bipartisan Federal Spectrum Working Group to examine how the federal government can use the nation’s airwaves more efficiently, the two announced Wednesday (April 25). Walden said the group will “take a comprehensive, thoughtful, and responsible look at how to improve federal spectrum use as part of our ongoing effort to make the most efficient and effective use of the public’s airwaves.” In February, Congress gave the FCC authority to conduct broadcast spectrum auctions to free up bandwidth for mobile devices (Current, Feb. 28).Chairs of the new group are Reps. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and Doris Matsui (D-Calif.).

Longtime visual journalist joins ‘PBS NewsHour’ as multimedia managing editor

PBS NewsHour has hired visual journalist Tom Kennedy, formerly of WashingtonPost.com and the National Geographic Society, as its managing editor for multimedia.Kennedy currently teaches in the multimedia, photography and design department at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. In more than 35 years in print and online journalism, he has created, directed and edited projects that have earned Pulitzers, Emmys, Peabodys and Edward R. Murrow awards.At the NewsHour, Kennedy will be responsible for the program’s online content strategy and digital operation. He was managing editor for multimedia at WashingtonPost.com, developing its multimedia section and creating the first documentary video team for an American newspaper-based website. Previously, he was director of photography at the National Geographic Society.Kennedy begins work at the NewsHour in June. (Photo: NewsHour)

Station programmer asks CPB ombudsman to address Dyer pledge content

The issue of spirituality in motivational speaker Wayne Dyer’s pledge programming has resurfaced in the latest CPB ombudsman’s column, after the PBS ombudsman, Michael Getler, addressed the topic earlier this month. Getler wrote that he “sensed” that Dyer’s programs violate PBS’s Editorial Standards and Policies to provide “nonsectarian” content. Aaron Pruitt, director of content at Montana PBS, wrote to Joel Kaplan, CPB ombudsman, to express concern over the lack of discussion of Dyer’s content among pubcasting programmers or development staffers. “I have been working in public television now for nearly 18 years,” Pruitt writes. “The silence regarding this topic, in these otherwise lively discussion groups, is deafening.

Chicago Public Media picks up former Sun-Times journalist as blogger

WBEZ in Chicago has hired veteran newsman Zay N. Smith as a blogger, according to Bob Feder’s media column in Time Out Chicago. Smith “was a popular fixture” in the Sun-Times for 13 years, Feder notes, with his Quick Takes column, “a collection of quirky news items, political punditry and random observations.” Beginning May 7, that column will appear three times a week on Chicago Public Media’s website.The Sun-Times discontinued Quick Takes in 2008, and Smith resigned a year later. Coincidentally, in one of Smith’s Quick Takes columns seven years ago he admitted he had “no idea” what a blog was.

Third-party fundraising on noncoms now off agenda for this week’s FCC meeting

The FCC has dropped an agenda item on noncom on-air fundraising from its April 27 public meeting, “which more than likely means it will be voted and approved before the meeting,” reports Broadcasting & Cable. The item had been a notice of proposed rulemaking inviting public comment on allowing non-CPB grantees “to conduct on-air fundraising activities that interrupt regular programming for the benefit of third-party nonprofit organizations.” The National Religious Broadcasters have sought more latitude in on-air fundraising for other nonprofits, B&C notes. The item proposed allowing noncom stations to use 1 percent of annual airtime for those activities.

This Saturday’s webcast on public TV local production

The year’s second Public Media Futures forum, on public TV strategies in local production, will be webcast live Saturday, April 28, from Los Angeles.To connect, go to the website communicationleadership.usc.edu, from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Pacific time (12:30 to 4:30 Eastern time). Submit questions here.Tentative start times of the three sessions:9:45 a.m. Pacific / 12:45 p.m. Eastern: Nashville Public Television, a former school-board dependent whose local programs now outdraw the PBS schedule.10:45 a.m. Pacific / 1:45 Eastern: San Diego’s KPBS, a “fully converged” FM/TV operator that recently launched a half-hour nightly news show.12:15 p.m. Pacific / 3:15 p.m. Eastern: How KOCE/PBS SoCal is performing in its new role as primary PBS outlet in Los Angeles, including local productions for TV and the Web.Here’s a list of participants. The event is part of a series of forums on Public Media Futures sponsored by the Center on Communication Leadership and Policy at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism along with American University School of Communication, parent of Current. This week’s session is presented with the assistance of Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media (GFEM).

“Women, War and Peace,” NPR, ProPublica win Overseas Press Club honors

WNET has claimed two Overseas Press Club awards, among several awarded to public media news organizations. The New York City station won both the Edward R. Murrow Award for best TV doc on international affairs, and the Robert Spiers Benjamin Award for best Latin American reporting, for Women, War and Peace, a five-part series produced by Fork Films.The Lowell Thomas Award for best radio news of international affairs went to NPR for its coverage of the Arab Spring.And the best online investigation of an international issue or event was awarded to a collaboration between ProPublica and The Financial Times, “Tax Wars: A Cross-Border Battle Worth Billions.”A full list of awards is here.